Can I Speak to Your (Product) Manager? Product Pioneering: Strategies for Scaling from Ground Zero
Jan 4, 2024
Vrushali Paunikar, Chief Product Officer at Carta known for building product and design teams, talks scaling a fund administration product into a $100M business. She recounts focused surge experiments, shadowing fund accountants, and lessons from double-entry accounting. She also covers making the case for a purpose-built ledger and aligning product and product marketing.
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Carta's Vertical Stack Covers Cap Tables To Fund Admin
- Carta builds financial infrastructure for private markets across cap table management, fund admin, liquidity and secondaries.
- Fund Admin launched in 2018 as a hybrid product/service where Carta hired fund accountants to operate back offices for VC and PE firms.
Shadowing Fund Accountants Revealed The Real Problem
- Vrushali took over Carta's struggling fund administration product and discovered deep gaps by shadowing fund accountants and relearning accounting.
- She read Double Entry and traced accounting history to Luca Pacioli, which shaped an event-based ledger vision that replaced ad hoc fixes.
Build Strong Primitives To Avoid Future Rework
- Building for scale is about correct aperture and primitives: intentional short-term work should still preserve long-term building blocks.
- Vrushali emphasizes building strong primitives to avoid costly re-architects later.